←back to thread

Apple Photos app corrupts images

(tenderlovemaking.com)
1133 points pattyj | 1 comments | 17 Sep 25 11:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | source
Show context
deviation ◴[17 Sep 25 11:47 UTC] No.45274615[source]▶
It seems to be an import pipeline bug.

Photos does a lot of extra work on import (merging RAW+JPEG pairs, generating previews, database indexing, optional deletion), so my guess is a concurrency bug where a buffer gets reused or a file handle is closed before the copy finishes.

Rare, nondeterministic corruption fits the profile.

replies(7): >>45274840 #>>45275400 #>>45275556 #>>45275634 #>>45277188 #>>45278171 #>>45280431 #
tenderlove ◴[17 Sep 25 12:08 UTC] No.45274840[source]▶
This is also my guess. It's really a bummer, and I'd report it to Apple but since it's nondeterministic I have no idea how to provide repro steps.
replies(8): >>45275065 #>>45275163 #>>45276096 #>>45276185 #>>45276696 #>>45277780 #>>45279586 #>>45281857 #
strunz ◴[17 Sep 25 12:41 UTC] No.45275163[source]▶
Have you tried copying the files to the local disk before importing?
replies(2): >>45276149 #>>45276592 #
1. sib ◴[17 Sep 25 14:54 UTC] No.45276592[source]▶
I use Lightroom, but always with this workflow (copy files from memory card to disk, then use LR to do the import / move / build previews).

If nothing else, it lets you get your card back much more quickly, as a file-system copy runs at ~1500MBps, which makes a difference when importing 50-100GB of photos.

I also don't delete the images off the memory card until they've been backed up from the disk to some additional medium.